WINTER ODYSSEY

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1936, Page 11

WINTER ODYSSEY

FAMILY HOMEWARD BOUND The plans of the family at present touring the North Island on Shanks's pony were made in a great hurry, and within a few hours of their having been made, the children, the youngest of whom is four, and their mother set out upon their arduous journey to Auckland and back. It is understood that this intrepid party slept under a barbed-wire fence on the first night of the trip, as the mother states in one of her letters that they woke up with "icicles on their noses."

Progress to Auckland was fairly rapid owing to the kind-heartedness of numerous motorists, and after spending a week there, during which they were entertained at supper after an evening church service on June 7, they set off on the return trip for Wellington, thrilled at the prospector encountering snow in the King Country. A letter written from Taumarunui on June 16 says:—"Well, we've landed right in the centre of a tapu Maori pa that the Maoris refuse to live in, so white people have it. It was quite thrilling sleeping in a haunted house. Next morning the Maoris looked at us in horror and seriously asked us if we saw anything. This morning (June lb.» they are holding a tangi, as a Maori has died, and we are invited." Bad weather held the party up for a day at Taumarunui, but they arrived at Eaetihi on June 17 and, if their present rate of progress is maintained, they should be back in Wellington early next week.